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FEATURE DATA CENTRE MANAGEMENT THE ACTION IS OUT ON THE EDGE


centralised, the data gathered by unmanned machinery or unattended workstations may be only minimally connected to their data centres and business networks. As a result, the time it takes to gather, process, and analyse data on machine performance makes it difficult to identify problems, diagnose them, and respond to them promptly. In contrast, with today’s edge


In all the excitement over the IIoT (industrial internet of things), edge computing, the domain of computing activity that may do the most to translate IIoT technology into lasting business value, has been somewhat overlooked. David Laurello, president and CEO at Stratus Technologies, discusses


O


f course, computing on the edge – technology infrastructure that is


located on or near production operations, for data collection, data analysis, and data storage – has been going on for decades. Processes like keeping an assembly line running smoothly, delivering clean water continuously, and making trains run on time have long depended on edge data being gathered efficiently, with only limited connectivity to data centres. But from a computing standpoint, the edge has often been seen as something of a sleepy backwater. All that has changed recently, thanks to


secular (industry-agnostic) trends that have driven dramatically more investment in computing infrastructure at the edge, followed by increased reliance on edge-gathered data for cutting-edge applications. These trends include the criticality of data to business success; the demand for real-time analysis of data, in order to make better


business decisions; and the increasing interconnection of ‘things’ of all kinds, in order to gather ever more and higher- quality data. As a result, analysts estimate that 5.6bn IoT devices owned by enterprises and governments will utilise edge computing for data collection and processing in 2020. This is up from 1.6bn in 2017. By 2019, 40 per cent of all IoT-collected data is expected to be stored, processed, analysed and acted upon close to or at the edge of the network.


REAL BENEFITS AND OPPORTUNITIES These trends present the opportunity to reap significant benefits, for those organisations that can take advantage of them. Consider the case of a manufacturer looking to improve decision-making and overall productivity. Most manufacturers are already operating at the edge. While their plant operations may be


computing infrastructure, manufacturers can now automate the collection of large volumes of machine data (available from IoT sensors), compare it to their own historic performance or industry-wide standards, and derive usable analysis right on the shop floor. This approach drives predictive maintenance to maximise machine uptime, streamline production processes and reduce costs.


KEEPING PACE WITH THE EVOLVING EDGE Meanwhile, other business and technology trends are still reshaping how computing happens at the edge, and driving the need for a new edge infrastructure. Key requirements include: meeting the demand for real-time analysis and support more rigorous decision-making, much more computing power at the edge; the ability to cope with the exponential growth of data, smarter networking and data-storage processes; and guarding against all the new intrusion points and attack vectors that are created by IIoT interconnection, highly secure connected-edge environments. IT and OT (operations technology) professionals - both of whose domains include responsibility for computing on the edge – will have their hands full, evaluating a variety of ‘next- generation’ solutions that are proposed as the edge infrastructure of the near future. Among these are micro data centres, ruggedised edge servers, edge gateways, and edge analytic devices. One useful screen to help triage them may be to ask, can they self-manage? www.stratus.com


32 APRIL 2018 | ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING


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